April 28, 2014

Obligatory Seriousness on Some Rich Racist Commentary

I hear that there are a couple of rich white men with problems. One of them has a problem with the Federal government that has something to do with cows. The other has a problem with a girlfriend who brings black people to his basketball games.

There's about three things to say here.

The first is that it doesn't take a genius to realize that America has a pretty good sense of outrage. In fact we have an outrage machine that cranks up the volume and puts such offensive commentary on blast. It also doesn't require black politics. All of this is on autopilot. Nobody is calling on black political leaders and asking for an interpretation of the facts. That is interesting to me because it means a few things that should be obvious but are not.

2. Americans understand that this sort of thing exists. Nobody is pretending that it doesn't.

3. Americans aren't particularly interested in the rarified implications, and are not seeking expert advice on what to do.

In this regard, racism is treated by the American people like the social outrage that it is. Nothing more and nothing less. So it makes news, it aggrevates the lot of us, it gets replaced by the next big story.

The second thing is that people are recognizing the difference between the comments of Bundy and the comments of Sterling and they rightly understand that Sterling's comments are much more offensive. Sterling, unlike Bundy is not making theories about the implications of slavery, he's just straight out saying that he doesn't want black people around.

The third thing is that we all probably would be edified just a bit more if we did look into the rarified implications and expert advice. It's not going to change society and as with all sin, constant vigilance is required. The same thing applies for all the evils of men, including that of war. But we know that a military will sit idle when the deadly consequences of human aggression are not clear, present, drastic and immediate. It always requires wise leadership to muster the appropriate response. Sterling wasn't lynching anyone and so he shouldn't be lynched. Our useful and correct mob sensibility on these blow-ups require expert perspective, but it doesn't change the fact that it was TMZ that broke the Sterling story. Is this is an opportunity for beer summitry, or a change in NBA ethics rules? We don't know, but somebody will.

On that last point, we should keep in mind that every racial theorist doesn't actually know what they are talking about. We have a broad variety of experts who are actually experts from whom to draw advice. They will be versed in world history - and this outrage is not of world historical proportions. As it should be clear, there is more than enough common sense to go around.

Comments

Obligatory Seriousness on Some Rich Racist Commentary

I hear that there are a couple of rich white men with problems. One of them has a problem with the Federal government that has something to do with cows. The other has a problem with a girlfriend who brings black people to his basketball games.

There's about three things to say here.

The first is that it doesn't take a genius to realize that America has a pretty good sense of outrage. In fact we have an outrage machine that cranks up the volume and puts such offensive commentary on blast. It also doesn't require black politics. All of this is on autopilot. Nobody is calling on black political leaders and asking for an interpretation of the facts. That is interesting to me because it means a few things that should be obvious but are not.

2. Americans understand that this sort of thing exists. Nobody is pretending that it doesn't.

3. Americans aren't particularly interested in the rarified implications, and are not seeking expert advice on what to do.

In this regard, racism is treated by the American people like the social outrage that it is. Nothing more and nothing less. So it makes news, it aggrevates the lot of us, it gets replaced by the next big story.

The second thing is that people are recognizing the difference between the comments of Bundy and the comments of Sterling and they rightly understand that Sterling's comments are much more offensive. Sterling, unlike Bundy is not making theories about the implications of slavery, he's just straight out saying that he doesn't want black people around.

The third thing is that we all probably would be edified just a bit more if we did look into the rarified implications and expert advice. It's not going to change society and as with all sin, constant vigilance is required. The same thing applies for all the evils of men, including that of war. But we know that a military will sit idle when the deadly consequences of human aggression are not clear, present, drastic and immediate. It always requires wise leadership to muster the appropriate response. Sterling wasn't lynching anyone and so he shouldn't be lynched. Our useful and correct mob sensibility on these blow-ups require expert perspective, but it doesn't change the fact that it was TMZ that broke the Sterling story. Is this is an opportunity for beer summitry, or a change in NBA ethics rules? We don't know, but somebody will.

On that last point, we should keep in mind that every racial theorist doesn't actually know what they are talking about. We have a broad variety of experts who are actually experts from whom to draw advice. They will be versed in world history - and this outrage is not of world historical proportions. As it should be clear, there is more than enough common sense to go around.